Rating: 
Summary: A wise and thoughtful book
Review: Not only is this book insightful and helpful, it is well-written. It draws on wisdom from psychology as well as many of the world's great religions--clearly the product of a well-educated and compassionate mind. The meditation exercises at the ends of the chapters can be used again and again.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful, comforting and full of hope!
Review: This book is a great affirmation for people that have had a difficult childhood. Seeing the difficulties as "blessing" and a chance to relish in God's grace puts life in true perspective.God's peace...
Rating:
Summary: good view of a difficult situation
Review: This book is a great affirmation for people that have had a difficult childhood. Seeing the difficulties as "blessing" and a chance to relish in God's grace puts life in true perspective. God's peace...
Rating: 
Summary: Stay away from this dangerous book!
Review: This book was a huge disappointment. Wayne Muller gets points for trying to deal with this subject; it's something that some of us are spending a lifetime working on. However, he's clearly in over his head. I have never bothered to write a review of a book for this site before, but I am convinced the author is dangerously incompetent when it comes to dealing with this subject, that abuse survivors should stay away from it. Wayne Muller seemed to have no feel for the true pain that his target audience has dealt with, nor the spiritual path they may be on. This might just be a good book for those who think they had a lot worse childhood than they really did, and are trying to get over a bad attitude. If really bad things happened to you, don't pick up this book.
Rating:
Summary: Wise and gentle book
Review: This book was well written, and full of kindness and wisdom. Its message was comforting. It brought peace.
Rating:
Summary: Wise and gentle book
Review: This book was well written, full of kindness and wisdom. Its message was comforting. It brought peace. The book made a positive difference in my life.
Rating: 
Summary: A classic on dealing with wounds of childhood
Review: Wayne Muller brings us a classic on how to deal with the invariable wounds of childhood.
"A painful childhood invariably focuses our attention on the inner life. In response to childhood hurt, we learn to cultivate a heightened awareness, and sharpen our capacity to discern how things move and change in our environment. Childhood pain encourages us to watch things more closely, to listen more carefully, to attend to the subtle imbalances that arise within and around us. We develop an exquisite ability to feel the feelings of others, and we become exceptionally mindful of every conflict, every flicker of hope or despair, every piece of information that may hold some teaching for us. Thus, family pain broke us open and set our hearts on a pilgrimage in search of the love and belonging, safety and abundance, joy and peace that were missing from our childhood story. Seen through this lens, family sorrow is not only a painful wound to be endured, analyzed, and treated. It may in fact become a seed that gives birth to our spiritual healing and awakening." (p. xiii)
"Your life is not a problem to be solved but a gift to be opened. Just as the pain, hurt, and suffering that came to you as a child were powerfully real, so is the tangible resilience of your spirit equally vital and alive. " (p. xiv)
Muller suggests a variety of meditations and exercises that help to absorb, accept and transform our negative reactions to our childhood wounds and to grow and deepen our emotional and spiritual awareness in the process.
Rating:
Summary: Life-saving, Life-altering and Life-affirming
Review: Wayne Muller's gentle approach to the reader's taking ownership of his pain without allowing victimhood to take ownership of the reader is the most valuable non-fiction I ever have read. Muller takes the reader through spriritual practices that promote growth from experience of ever the most hurtful sort. He uses ample and varied examples to show how we repeatedly shoot ourselves in the foot. Better yet, he helps change thinking patterns to avoid those life-laming foot-wounds. Everyone has some sort of pain from childhood. Some pain can cut more deeply and last longer than others. Muller validates all pain and all the scars it leaves. But, he takes the reader through the pain, without denying it, to a plain of coping with it. And, he helps the reader climb a mountain from which he can view the pain that helped shape but no longer defines the reader. Muller's book is a gift to every person who reads it. The author combines eastern, Indian and Christian beliefs and practices to produce life-saving, life-altering and life-affirming practices and phiolsophy. Thank you, Wayne Muller!
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